Yu-Mei Balasingamchow

Hi, this is my blog

8.12.08

Writing vs. getting a book deal

I did hardly any writing today, so to atone I'm blogging another writing-related link instead. After this morning's "Writers' Rooms", I got home to find a New York Times article from James: "Typing Without a Clue", by Timothy Egan.

Egan's point:

Most of the writers I know work every day, in obscurity and close to poverty, trying to say one thing well and true. Day in, day out, they labor to find their voice, to learn their trade, to understand nuance and pace. And then, facing a sea of rejections, they hear about something like Barbara Bush’s dog getting a book deal.

I was in Kinokuniya today (before I read this article) and marvelling at the number of completely inconsequential books that get not only published but shipped all the way to Singapore. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the system's hit a point where I can finally get my hands on the full oeuvre of Margaret Atwood or the new paperback edition of The Lost: A Search for Six of the Six Million without having to place a special order. But I wish that didn't also mean that Twilight gets touted all over the place.

tscd > I am a huge Atwood fan. I really enjoyed The Blind Assassin (which cover do dislike?), and The Handmaid's Tale and Cat's Eye are old favourites of mine too.

piper > I dragged a friend up to the Twilight display in Kinokuniya and had a good laugh reading aloud random snippets from the book --- though the writing was so awful I couldn't keep up the reading aloud part for more than a couple of lines at a time.